A mainlander was arrested on Thursday at an airport in Hebei province for robbing a female gambler out of HK$300,000 in a hotel guestroom in Cotai about six hours earlier, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Ho Chan Nam said in a special press conference on Saturday.
The 31-year-old jobless suspect surnamed Cui engaged in illegal exchange activities in Macau.
According to Ho, an employee of a casino-hotel resort in Cotai informed the Judiciary Police on Thursday that a woman from the mainland had been robbed by a man. The woman told the police that she had used Cui’s currency exchange service several times before.
She told the police she had told Cui that she had about HK$800,000 in winnings on Thursday. Cui suggested she exchange part of her Hong Kong dollar winnings into yuan to be remitted to the mainland.
She went to Cui’s hotel guestroom in Cotai for the exchange deal at about 1:30 p.m. Cui suddenly told her that he had gambled away HK$500,000 and owed someone HK$100,000. He asked her to lend him HK$300,000 urgently.
Ho said the victim got scared and tried to leave the room, but Cui stopped her and took some string from his trouser pocket and tied her up. He covered the victim’s mouth with packing tape and left her in the room’s toilet. Cui took the money and left the room. The victim managed to untie herself in about 10 minutes and asked a hotel employee for help.
According to Ho, the Judiciary Police discovered that Cui’s rucksack was in the guestroom with his mainland ID card inside.
PJ officers identified Cui and discovered he went gambling in a casino in Cotai immediately after the robbery and won tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars and then left Macau via the Hengqin checkpoint using his mainland travel document. The Judiciary Police notified the mainland police to assist in the investigation.
Cui was arrested when he arrived at the Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport in Hebei at about 8 p.m. The mainland police seized the stolen money as well as a number of casino chips. The police are continuing their investigation into the case, Ho said.
Shijiazhuang lies some 1,700 kilometres north of Macau.
This handout photo provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) on Saturday shows mainland police officers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) arresting the robbery suspect (third from left) at the Shijiazhuang Zhengding International Airport in Hebei province upon arrival from Macau via Zhuhai on Thursday. The suspect’s face has been pixelated.
